Vietnam welcomes nearly 2.7 million international visitors in Q1

On March 29, the General Statistics Office (GSO) reported that Vietnam welcomed more than 2.69 million foreign tourist arrivals in the first quarter of 2023, 29.7 times higher than that of the same period last year.
Tourists line up to buy tickets to see water puppetry at Thang Long Puppet Theater. (Photo: T.LINH)
Tourists line up to buy tickets to see water puppetry at Thang Long Puppet Theater. (Photo: T.LINH)

Most of the foreign visitors, 89.8%, came to Vietnam by air, 9% by road, and 1.2% by sea. The Republic of Korea is still the largest market sending tourists to Vietnam, with an estimated 250,649 tourists in March and 810,938 visitors in the first quarter of 2023.

In March alone, international visitors to Vietnam were estimated at 895,400, down 4% compared to the previous month and 21.5 times higher than the same period last year.

March saw the return of tourists from China on March 15, when Vietnam officially welcomed the first Chinese tourists, after the country reopened international tourism activities.

This month, China is the second largest tourist market sending tourists to Vietnam, with an estimated 69,329 visitors. Generally, in the first quarter of 2023, visitors from China were estimated at 140,233, ranking third in the markets sending visitors to Vietnam.

The GSO estimated revenue in the three months, from accommodation and catering services, to hit 161 trillion VND.

Meanwhile, thanks to exciting cultural and tourism activities, in the first months of the year across localities, travel businesses earned about 6.8 trillion VND, a 2.2-fold increase from last year.

NDO